Teachers and staff in Brown County Schools will receive increases to their pay this school year after the Brown County School Board of Trustees approved the raises earlier this month.
The 2021-2022 collective bargaining agreement between the Brown County Educators Association and the school board was approved at the Nov. 4 meeting.
This year’s contract includes a $3,000 increase to the base salary for all teachers returning this school year. The raises will be based on evaluations.
Teachers who received their master’s degree since last school year will receive an additional increase to their salary. The additional amount will be “based upon meeting academic goals,” according to a summary of the agreement distributed to the school board this month.
Newly hired teachers will have their salaries readjusted between $2,125 and $3,000.
This was Kristi Billings’ second time leading negotiations on behalf of the educators association as president.
“The process followed essentially the same path this year with new superintendent, Emily Tracy, as it has in prior years, with the exception of a few requirements mandated by new state law passed during the last state legislative session which added steps to the process,” Billings said of negotiations this year.
One of those requirements is ensuring a $40,000 base salary for teachers with additional funding the state has provided to school districts.
Billings said the association expected to make a “significant improvement” to base salaries with increases to state education funding — due to increases in funding from the federal government — that were approved earlier this year and cuts made to the school district’s budget locally. Over the last five years more than $4.5 million was cut from the school district’s budget.
“(We) are pleased that we achieved that outcome,” Billings said of the pay raises for teachers.
“The BCEA bargaining team is proud of the changes and improvements we achieved for our teachers in terms of salaries and benefits offered and are grateful for an administrative team that supports our teachers in this manner.”
She continued that this contract helps keep Brown County Schools competitive with surrounding area schools.
“Our teachers are seeing an average pay increase of around 6.5 percent to their base salary, which helps to keep our compensation package for teachers competitive with neighboring public school districts while accomplishing the task of meeting the $40,000 base salary mandate required by the new state law,” she said.
“For too long, teaching has been an underpaid profession when compared to those careers requiring the same level of skill and training in any sector outside of education.”
Billings continued that the pandemic has brought the issue of underpaying teachers to the forefront as school districts across the state struggle to fully staff schools with teachers.
“More and more educators are turning away from the profession as a result of burnout and fewer new educators are entering the profession overall,” she said.
Billings said as an educators association they would like the ability to negotiate more aspects of the job, like class sizes and hours, but that state law does not allow for those types of negotiations with the school district.
“I think it’s important for our community members to know this because at the end of the day, teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions, and we owe it to our students to provide them with the best educational experience possible,” she said.
One new item that was added through negotiations to the contract this school year was a COVID Leave Bank.
“We were able to add (the leave bank) this year in the bargaining process to alleviate concerns about running out of sick leave due to quarantine protocols,” Billings said.
Teachers or staff do have to quarantine at home if they test positive for COVID-19. Students, teachers and staff no longer have to quarantine if they are identified as a COVID-19 close contact in a school building where everyone had their masks on consistently throughout the school day.
Last school year, the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided 10 days of paid leave through Dec. 31 of last year. The school board then passed a resolution providing that leave to staff through the end of last school year.
“When we began the 2021-2022 school year, there were no legal mandates to provide any kind of COVID leave, and as I learn about the collective bargaining agreements reached in neighboring districts that lack any COVID provisions, I am grateful to be in a district that recognizes the health and safety risks being placed on teachers in classrooms during this current pandemic,” Billings said.
An attendance incentive was also suspended for this school year in the contract. Teachers will also receive eight personal days and five sick days. Currently teachers receive seven personal days and five sick days.
The school district’s referendum dollars also helps to fund raises for teachers and staff.
Next year that fund is estimated to bring in $1.2 million.
In 2016, voters approved adding 8 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to the schools’ tax rate for seven years with a penny of that going to the Career Resource Center of Brown County. The school district had promised taxpayers that the money from the referendum would cover salaries and benefits for teachers and staff.
Despite the additional funding from the state and the referendum, Billings said more work still needs to be done to fully fund public schools and pay teachers more for working through the pandemic for nearly two years.
“Fully compensate not only teachers but all school staff that have worked and continue to work tirelessly through some increasingly difficult circumstances in the past several years,” Billings said.
“Referendum dollars have provided a much needed financial resource in a very difficult time of transition for Brown County Schools. As an educators’ association, we are grateful that our community has shown and hopefully continues to show their commitment to providing high-quality educational experiences for the young people in our community through their support of a local referendum.”
At the Nov. 4 meeting the school board also approved raises for administrators, except for the superintendent, and non-certified staff. The school board will decide on a raise for Superintendent Emily Tracy separately.
Administrators will also receive $3,000 to their base salary. Non-certified staff will receive a raise between 25 cents to 50 cents on their hourly pay. All raises are retroactive to July 1.
